Chief magistrate

“ Although in our country the Chief Magistrate must almost of necessity be chosen by a party and stand pledged to its principles and measures, yet in his official action he should not be the President of a part only, but of the whole people of the United States. While he executes the laws with an impartial hand, shrinks from no proper responsibility, and faithfully carries out in the executive department of the Government the principles and policy of those who have chosen him, he should not be unmindful that our fellow-citizens who have differed with him in opinion are entitled to the full and free exercise of their opinions and judgments, and that the rights of all are entitled to respect and regard. ”

“ In a general sense a magistrate is a public civil officer, possessing such power legislative, executive, or judicial-as the government appointing him may ordain. In a narrow sense, a magistrate is regarded perhaps, commonly regarded-as an inferior judicial officer, such as a justice of the peace. ”

“ The magistrates are appointed by the Crown; they must have been practising barristers for seven years or stipendiary magistrates for some place in England or Wales. One police magistrate has the same powers as two Justices, but may not act in anything which has to be done at special or petty sessions of all the justices acting in the division or at quarter sessions. He can do alone when sitting in a police court any act which any justice or justices can do under the Indictable Offences Act 1848, or under the Summary Jurisdiction Act ”

“ To the superior judges fall the duties of solving abstruse legal problems, and of determining the weightiest legal issues, but it is the police magistrate who is in daily contact with the criminal and with the aggrieved person, it is he who applies the law in the first instance, and to him the large majority of the people look for decisions upon which their liberty or their property may depend. ”

“ The "Substitut" always preserved a rather deferential attitude before the President and M. Ducros, for they belonged to the magistrature assise, whilst he merely formed part of the magistrature debout The French word magistrat is not the equivalent of our magistrate, the French term for which is "Juge de Paix." A magistrat means a Judge or a Public Prosecutor.
From being so much with the judges, I grew quite learned in French legal terms, talked of the parquet (which means the Bar) , and invariably termed the grubby little Nyons law-court the Palais. ”

“ The prisoner [126] is thus isolated and can only communicate with his solicitor, if he has been able to retain one, by scrawling a note and passing it on to an officer.
The magistrate, appointed by the Crown or the Lord Chancellor acting in its behalf, is almost invariably a man of standing and repute, always a barrister, whose ready dispatch of business shows great experience with crime, and whose kindness to the merely unfortunate testifies to his charitableness of heart. He wears no wig nor gown and is called in court, "Your Worship" ”

“ In many country districts, where the justices are old and incompetent, they are absolutely in the hands of their clerk, who for all practical purposes becomes not only a magistrate, but the sole magistrate present. ”

“ For offences so highly dangerous, in the punishment or prevention of which a moment's delay would be fatal, the law has given to the crown the power of [pg 10] an immediate prosecution, without waiting for any previous application to any other tribunal: which power, thus necessary, not only to the ease and safety, but even to the very existence of the executive magistrate, was originally reserved in the great plan of the English constitution, wherein provision is wisely made for the preservation of all its parts. ”

“ I have outlined why I believe the only defensible construction of the Federal Magistrates Act is that jury selection in a felony trial can never be one of a magistrate's "additional duties"-regardless of whether a defendant consents. ”

“ It is the duty of the officer making the arrest to bring you into a court, but this is not generally to a trial court. A person is generally brought before what is called a committing magistrate, a justice of the peace or commissioner—some person having authority to issue warrants of arrest. You may be far from home and friends when you are arrested. You may be entirely unacquainted in the neighborhood. The government is not ready to proceed to your trial. Witnesses must be summoned, not only for the government, but if you have witnesses you desire to use, they must be brought in. ”

“ Of magistrates also some are supreme, in whom the sovereign power of the state resides; others are subordinate, deriving all their authority from the supreme magistrate, accountable to him for their conduct, and acting in an inferior secondary sphere. ”

“ It is in the power of any single magistrate, or of the Attorney for the Commonwealth, to lay hold of the commanding officer, whenever he comes ashore, for the breach of the peace, and to proceed against him by indictment. ”

“ When a criminal court having jurisdiction is of opinion that proceedings shall be instituted before itself in respect of any alleged offence, it may, by written notice, require the officer referred to in section 125 at his option, either to deliver over the offender to the nearest magistrate to be proceeded against according to law, or to postpone proceedings pending a reference to the Central Government. ”

“ Neither the President nor the Attorney General is a magistrate. In matters where they believe national security may be involved they are not detached, disinterested, and neutral as a court or magistrate must be. ”

“ Attached to the office of every official who may be called upon to try criminal cases is a law expert, to whom the judge or magistrate may refer, when he has any doubt, in private, just as our unpaid justices of the peace in England refer for guidance to the qualified official attached to the court. ”

“ And as to the powers given to one, two, or more justices by the several statutes, that from time to time have heaped upon them such an infinite variety of business, that few care to undertake, and fewer understand, the office; they are such and of so great importance to the public, that the country is greatly obliged to any worthy magistrate, that without sinister views of his own will engage in this troublesome service. ”

“ Upon this last point, one word: we have seen nothing more grossly factious in the conduct of the Whigs, than the assertion, that these magistrates ought not to have been dismissed. Well might the Chancellor say, that the discussion had been conducted by petty lawyerlike quibbles. The case stands thus: there are two principles concerned in the tenure of the magistrate's office—theoretic amenability to the letter of the law, and practical serviceableness for his duties. ”

“ But two departments in which they represented the supreme magistracy must have stood out prominently from the first. These were criminal jurisdiction and finance. [326] The “city quaestors” (quaestores urbani) , as they were subsequently called to distinguish them from their provincial colleagues, were known as quaestores parricidii [327] and quaestores aerarii. In their first capacity they were delegates whom the magistrate employed in criminal jurisdiction, probably occupying with respect to procedure much the same place as the duoviri in the trial of Horatius. ”

“ But this worthy magistrate never suffered his feelings to bias his integrity; he knew that he did not sit on that bench to indulge pity, but to administer justice; and while he was sorry for the offender, he would never justify the offense. "John," said he, "I am surprised that you could for a moment forget that I never accept any gift which causes the giver to break a law. On Sunday I teach you from the pulpit the laws of God, whose minister I am. At present I fill the chair of a magistrate, to enforce and execute the laws of the land. ”

“ No magistrate or judge can be deposed for a shorter or longer period, except by a written sentence, nor suspended from the discharge of the duties of his office, except by a judicial act, or in consequence of the order of the king, after he, on sufficient grounds, commands him to be tried by a proper tribunal. ”

“ Proceedings before a magistrate to commit a person to jail, or to hold him to bail, in order to secure his appearance to answer for a crime or offense which the magistrate has no jurisdiction himself to try, before the court in which he may be prosecuted and tried, are but preliminary to the prosecution, and are no more a commencement of the prosecution than is an arrest by an officer without a warrant, for a felony committed in his presence. ”

“ The officer who convenes the court-martial also has final authority to determine whether charges will be brought in the first place, and to pick the board of inquiry, the prosecutor, the defense counsel, and the law officer who serves as legal adviser to the court-martial. ”

“ Every three months an assize is held in each department, usually at the chief town, by a conseiller, appointed ad hoc, of the court of appeal upon which the department depends. The cour d’assises occupies itself entirely with offences of the most serious type, classified under the penal code as crimes, in accordance with the severity of the penalties attached. The president is assisted in his duties by two other magistrates, who may be chosen either from among the conseillers of the court of appeal or the presidents or judges of the local court of first instance. ”

“ While they hold office, they shall dwell within the precinct of the God. They are to divide all the magistracies into twelve classes, and may apply any methods of enquiry, and inflict any punishments which they please; in some cases singly, in other cases together, announcing the acquittal or punishment of the magistrate on a tablet which they will place in the agora. A magistrate who has been condemned by the examiners may appeal to the select judges, and, if he gain his suit, may in turn prosecute the examiners ”

“ This subsection would also enable the court to delegate some of the more administrative functions to a magistrate, such as the appointment of attorneys in criminal cases and assistance in the preparation of plans to achieve prompt disposition of cases in the court.
"If district judges are willing to experiment with the assignment to magistrates of other functions in aid of the business of the courts, there will be increased time available to judges for the careful and unhurried performance of their vital and traditional adjudicatory duties." ”

“ The most difficult part of a judge’s duty consists in trying criminal cases at the sessions. When an accused person is committed by a magistrate on a charge of murder or any other offence with which the magistrate cannot deal finally, he is tried by the sessions judge and by a jury of his countrymen. The prosecution is usually conducted by the Government pleader, whilst 125the accused retains the services of the best counsel that he can afford to pay. ”

“ The duties of a district magistrate are so numerous and so varied that one man could not possibly cope with them all. At the same time he is fully responsible. In addition to presiding over a court of first instance for all criminal trials in his district, he has to act as coroner (without a jury) at all inquests, collect and remit the land-tax, register all conveyances of land and house-property, act as preliminary examiner of candidates for literary degrees, and perform a host of miscellaneous offices, even to praying for rain or fine weather in cases of drought or inundation. ”

“ The Judge-Advocate attends every trial and coaches the Court in everything, from the etiquette of taking off your cap when you are taking the oath to the duty of rejecting "hearsay." He never prosecutes—that is always the task of some officer specially assigned for the purpose—but he may "sum up." ”

“ If I am not in error, an attorney is as much an officer of the court as the clerk, and it would be a novel thing in a government to have a court to administer law which denied the supremacy of the government itself. ”

“ It is almost peculiar to our constitution to establish a first magistrate with such high pre-eminence and dignity that, though limited by the laws, he is in a manner, so far as regards his own person, above the laws, and can neither be questioned nor punished for any injury or wrong which {p195} may be committed by him. ”

“ Can it be doubted that upon application from those whose interests are involved in the performance of his duties by the marshal, it is the right and the duty of the court in such a case to correct the irregularities of its officer, and to compel him to perform his duty? There is inherent in every court a power to supervise the conduct of its officers, and the execution of its judgments and process. ”

“ What new power ought to be placed in the magistrate, for what time, and with what restrictions, I am far from assuming the province of determining; but that some measures must be taken for compelling those who cannot be persuaded, and discovering those that will not offer themselves, cannot admit of doubt; and as the magistrate is at present without any authority for this purpose, it is evident that his power must be extended, for the same reason as it was given in its present degree—the general benefit of the whole community. ”

“ Nowhere than on the magistrate's bench is better illustrated the proverb that a little learning is a dangerous thing, but only a little learning, even such as classifies an innocent park robin as a wild beast, is preferable to an openly expressed intention of enforcing only those laws which appeal to the judge's individual sense of propriety. The writer recalls endeavoring some six years ago to induce [Pg 61] a certain magistrate to hold a defendant for the grand jury for a certain statutory offence. ”

“ We will appoint as justices, constables, sheriffs, or bailiffs only such as know the law of the realm and mean to observe it well.
The object of this plainly worded clause was to prevent the appointment of unsuitable men to responsible offices under the Crown. The list of officers given is a comprehensive one—justices, sheriffs, constables and bailiffs—embracing all royal ministers and agents, both of the central and of the local government, from the chief justiciar down to the humblest serjeant. ”